Our Values

In order to conduct community-driven research with integrity, we are a values-based research team. This means that this study has been developed around a core set of values that our team and partners have agreed upon. We refer to these values and our commitment to the community in all decision-making.

  1. The Songbird Study uses a public health approach to sex trafficking and rejects the involvement or promotion of the criminal legal system within research.

  2. Our team does not advocate for models that increase the criminalization of consensual sex workers or people experiencing trafficking or coerced sex work, such as the “Nordic Model” ; however, we acknowledge and respect that people with lived experience hold a range of views towards the sex trades. 

  3. We do not conflate sex trafficking with consensual sex work and recognize that many people with lived experience in the sex trades have experience with both. 

  4. We respect each person’s autonomy to define their lived experiences in the way that feels most appropriate to them. While this study uses the federal, operational definition of sex trafficking to advocate for as many people as possible, we encourage people to use the terms that resonate most with them. 

  5. The Songbird Study centers the desires of those with lived experience and rejects a deficit framework that only focuses on the harms experienced by the community. We believe meaningful research must be visionary, imaginative and desire-driven. 

  6. We strongly believe the knowledge and wisdom of those with lived experience is a form of labor that MUST be compensated. Asking people with lived experience to share knowledge for free is a form of labor exploitation.

  7. While the Songbird Study focuses on sex trafficking and coerced sex work, we acknowledge that sex trafficking is not inherently more traumatic or more important to address than labor trafficking, and that these experiences do not occur in silos.

  8. We acknowledge the limitations of research and the nuances of lived experience that our methods may not fully capture. 

  9. We acknowledge the harms research has caused among people with lived experience in the sex trades (consensual and coerced) and among groups most vulnerable to exploitation, such as Black, Indigenous and other people of color and 2SLGBTQIA+ identifying people. 

  10. While this study is inclusive of both domestic and international experiences of sex trafficking, we recognize that there are distinct differences between the two and acknowledge the hierarchies and tensions that exist within the sex trades, particularly between Western perspectives and those of the Global South.